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Monday, June 22, 2009

One weakness of the Nashville Charrette is its cocoon quality that insulates planners and urban design aficionados from social impact and public debate on developments. Giarratana/May Town Center developer David Koellein has lately been dominating discussion in the forum, and he is encouraging an echo chamber for the aficionados to agree with him absent any strong opposition.

Koellein's latest commentary on Metro Council is the typical dualistic hyperbole we get from developers when they are locked in to selling their product to the powers that be and to stirring up local support. To paraphrase, "It was the best of CMs and the worst of CMs":

Councilman [Lonell] Matthews, in whose district May Town Center will be located, has been a brilliant supporter of the project, one of those who really "gets it." Lots of other members of the Council are known to support it, too. Of course, there are also those who oppose it, but the political opponents seem to be few and mostly of the ilk whose ideals sometimes obscure their better judgement, waiting to support a candy-coated future that never comes and content to watch the whole region get paved over in the meantime.

This is the same guy who began appearing on online discussions about Bells Bend a week ago insisting that he deals in fact while those of us who oppose his vision are dealing "misinformation." If you have a chance drop in on that echo chamber and fact check Koellein's claimed facticity. I bet you could find a few more holes in his logic without even trying.

1 comment:

I think you are a bit harsh referring to the NC as an echo chamber. Any regular reader of the charrette would note a large number of anti-May Town posters, not to mention the strong anti-development (or I should say anti-bad development) arguments on the convention center and other threads. Your own sharp insights are a welcomed addition.

About Me

Been in urban North Nashville for over a decade. Before that I lived in East Nashville. I also lived in near West Nashville for a time. In the past I called Louisville (KY) and Dallas-Fort Worth (TX) home.